Changes in -hp12 (ann): * IMPORTANT: Fix for multiple machines doing the same work if wallet is shared. * New chain statistics in debug.log. * Removed 'primespersec' from the output of getmininginfo. * Removed 'chainspermin' metric. * Replaced -sievepercentage parameter with -sievefilterprimes. * New parameter -l1cachesize for specifying the size of sieve segments. * Added new blocks/day metric which tries to estimate how many blocks will be found at current difficulty. * Better automatic adjustment of primorial factor. * New parameter -primorial for manual adjustment of primorial. * Implemented early support for v0.2 proposal (needs to be enabled with -miningprotocol=2). * David's fix for getwork. * Updated to Bitcoin v0.8.6 codebase. * Improved the checking of BiTwin chain candidates. As a consequence, short BiTwin chains (1 or 2 primes) are now counted correctly in the mining statistics. Primes/h is now much higher due to this. * The Qt application is now titled Primecoin High Performance. * Fixes for Mac OS X and the Clang compiler. * Revised default sieve parameters. * Added an automatic donation feature when a new block is found. The -donationpercentage allows a percentage of the block reward to be donated to an address. E.g. passing the command-line parameter -donationpercentage=1.5 will donate 1.5% of every block to the developer. Alternatively, this value can be set in primecoin.conf. Also, the default address can be changed using -donationaddress.

Changes in -hp11: (ann) * Fixed a bug in the BiTwin filter that was inflating the chains/day estimate and reducing the chances of finding a block (thanks to rdebourbon). * Slightly improved the accuracy of the prime probability estimate with regards to the 'sieveextensions' parameter. * Changed the default value of 'sieveextensions' to 9. * Other small fixes and improvements from cabin.

Changes in -hp10: (ann) * Major rewrite of the sieve to support extending the sieve (originally implemented by jh000). * Added a new parameter 'sieveextensions' which controls how many times the sieve is extended. * Removed the problematic and unnecessary fast-division test. * Changed the value of nL1CacheElements to 224000 which is slightly faster (thanks to nushor on IRC). * The 'roundsievepercentage' parameter is gone. The round primorial is now automatically adjusted. * New RPC command 'listtopprimes' by Sunny.

Warning to Linux users: My binaries are linked against Berkeley DB 4.8.30. If you have compiled from source before, the database format may be incompatible if you linked against a different version of Berkeley DB. Sunny King's original binaries are linked against Berkeley DB 4.8.24, which should be compatible with my version. Always make sure to backup the database and your wallet before switching builds.

Q: How many blocks should I expect to find?A: My current formula for turning chains/day into blocks/day is as follows:blocks/day = chains/day * (0.97 * (1 - fracDiff) + 0.03)Here fracDiff is the fractional part of the mining difficulty (i.e. fracDiff = diff - floor(diff)). The 'getmininginfo' command will show both the chains/day value and the difficulty.

Q: Is this compatible with the original client? Can I replace primecoin-qt/primecoind with this release?A: Yes, the Windows builds should be compatible with the original client. It uses Berkeley DB version 4.8 so the database format should be the same.

Q: Why is the client crashing with the following message?Assertion failed!File: src/checkqueue.h, line 171Expression: pqueue->nTotal == pqueue-> nIdleA: This is a known bug which is present both in this version and the original Primecoin wallet. A workaround is to use a script or a cron job to automatically restart the wallet.

Q: How can I fix the client crashing on every startup?A: Try deleting all database files except wallet.dat.

Q: Where is the config file located?A: Windows users: The configuration file should be located in the %APPDATA%\Primecoin folder.Linux users: The configuration file is located in your $HOME/.primecoin folder.Mac OS X users: The configuration file is located in your $HOME/Library/Application Support/Primecoin folder.The configuration file is not created by default. If it does not exist, simply create a new text file and save it as primecoin.conf.

Q: What are the optimal sieve parameters?A: The default values should be good for most people. If you want to further optimize them, adjust them one-by-one and compare chains/day.

Q: Why is my performance worse on Linux?A: This version relies on libgmp to do most of the complex calculations. Make sure your libgmp is up-to-date. Old versions do not support newer CPUs. I suggest compiling your own libgmp from latest source code for maximum performance.

Q: Why has my prime rate dropped after updating?A: There are two common cases why primes/s can drop:1. You downloaded the 32-bit version which is slower. Use the 64-bit version if possible.2. Network difficulty has changed. Prime rate goes down when the integer part of the difficulty changes (i.e. going from 8.xx to 9.xx). It's a feature of the mining algorithm and nothing can be done about it.Otherwise please make a post wiith system information (especially CPU model), operating system version and miner version.

Can you compare the number of blocks found with your code versus sunny's code on the test net per some time interval? As sunny has said multiple times, the pps rate is not an effective measure of block finding increase.

Can you compare the number of blocks found with your code versus sunny's code on the test net per some time interval? As sunny has said multiple times, the pps rate is not an effective measure of block finding increase.

I believe that has to do with the fact that the PPS varies widely ... this is a dramatic increase on each cpu, i think when PPS is "generally high" or "generally low" is what sunny meant.